4.4. Katakana table

This is "gozyûonzu" (kana table) of katakana ( "katakana"). Note that kana in the table are written in Japanese way, characters from top to bottom and lines from right to left.

Each katakana is shown with its pronunciation. Being exactly the same as hiragana except for their shapes, katakana have the same pronunciations as hiragana, like English capital letters have the same pronunciation as small letters.

Katakana are mainly used for imported words, and sometimes used for emphasis, so they are similar to italic letters in English.